How are you progressing after setting yourself goals to make changes and improvements in your business? Following your half-year business review, you may have identified that some intentions either slipped, or did not transpire at all. The reason this could happen is because your well-intentioned habits did not fully form. You may have become bored, not seen the success you’d hoped for, or simply couldn’t fit them into your usually busy timetable.
Most people are naturally resistant to change. Change takes you out of your comfort zone, feels uncomfortable or risky, and so no matter how good your intentions are, you just can’t replace old habits. Well, here are some small changes you can make to help you stick with your intentions to create healthy new habits.
- Believe in yourself and your ability to change, tell yourself you can change
- Fuel your motivation for change by visualising what you want to do or to be
- Set yourself specific, measurable and achievable goals for the habit you want to create
- Break the change down into manageable activity steps
- Start a new behaviour with something small and easy (for example, ‘Put on my running shoes’, the first step of creating a habit for fitness or weight loss)
- Consider your environment and ask if it supports the desired habit or creates friction
- Trigger your new habit activity by tagging it immediately after something you already do. Therefore, when X happens, you also do Y
- When you start a new habit focus your behaviour on the repetition. Repeat it often rather than focusing on the time in total it takes
- Stay persistent and be kind to yourself. Remember that change is a process and setbacks are normal. Every outcome has a learn!
- Reinforce your new behaviour with something satisfying, a sense, a reward to fuel repetition
- Measure and track your progress towards creating your habit to maintain a streak of positive action and celebrate small wins – give yourself a tick!
- Remember that change takes time, be patient and persistent.
Do any of these small changes jump out as something you can implement? Whether it’s in business or the rest of your life, you CAN create healthy new habits, and stick to them. Remember – one small change is easy to make…
You’ve got this! But if it feels like you haven’t, I’m here to lend a supportive ear.
Mike
Further reading for inspiring new habits:
Tips for Sticking with Good Habits
Is Your Business Contributing to Your Reason Why